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Austin
Jade
Hello again! Well, for those of you who are reading this,
this is chapter seven of the now renamed story "The Golden
General." Originally this was named "Serena's deal with the
enemy" but Austin and I decided to change it.
Anyway, I hope you guys like this chapter!
Write me and/or Austin if you do!
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By the time the scouts and Tuxedo Mask reached the Cherry
Hill temple Luna and Artemis were also at the entrance, and
ready to pounce on them, but stopped themselves when they both
saw their faces. They all looked like they were in some osrt of
trance or coma. But when Tuxedo Mask brought an unconsious
Mercury towards them Luna and Artemis's eyes filled with worry
and concern. They all walked quietly into the temple with the
cats by their sides. Mars looked around the place quickly just
to make sure Grandpa and Chad weren't home and when she was
satisfied they weren't she followed the others. Tuxedo Mask
gently put Mercury down by the fire and moved away from her
side slightly so he could sit down in relative comfort. There
was complete silence for a few moments, and then the two cats
began to speak almost at the same time, or so it seemed to the
scouts.
"What happened?!" That was Luna.
"What's going on?!" That was Artemis.
"What happened to Mercury?! Is she alright?" Luna again.
"Where's Sere- Sailor Moon?!" Again Artemis.
"Is everyone alright?!" Luna.
"What happened to you all?!" Artemis.
"Did you lose the fight at the ice-cream shop?!" Luna.
"Venus, what-"
"Stop this chitter chatter. I and the remaining scouts will
tell you what happened soon, but first we have to tend to
Mercury!" *That* was Venus.
Both cats went silent as Sailor Venus's angry face stared at
them from above. Luna was annoyed, because usualy she was the one
who took command at scout meetings, and she was also annoyed
because, at the moment, she didn't know a thing about what was
going on. Boy did she want to know! She opened her mouth to say
something more, but caught the look on Venus's red face and shut
her mouth tightly, remaining quiet.
Artemis looked both shocked and angry at the same time but did
not venture to say anything.
Tuxedo Mask had been making sure that Mercury was o.k, although
she was not, and he had so many questions circling around in his
head at the moment he felt faint. WAs one of the first questions that popped into his
head, and the second was... He shrugged his shoulders and
waited for his turn to speak.
"Now," Venus began to the cats again. "you just be good little
kitties and stay put, and *silent* while we check on Mercury.
Alright?" The cats didn't answer.
Nodding to herself Venus turned to him and then looked down at
Mercury.
"Do you think she'll be alright?" She asked, kneeling down to
the injured scouts level and touching her hand ever so gently.
Tuxedo Mask looked at her. He was going to be a dcotor. He was
studying for it in college.
"I'll see." He bent over Mercury and checked for a pulse, there
was none. He bent down to her chest to see if she had a heartbeat.
She had one, but it was very slow and fluttering... almost
unnoticable.
"No.... she needs help... medical help... from a hospital." He
said to Venus. The scouts, Luna, and Artemis all looked at him.
They were not surprised. They would have to do something about it
later, but right now...... they had more important matters to attend
to.
Tuxedo Mask suddenly asked out of the blue, "Why are we at the
Cherry hill temple?" He waited curiously for a response to the
unexpected question.
Venus looked over at him and realization dawned on her. This was not exactly how Venus had been expecting things to
go when she went to fight that monster at the ice-cream parlor with
the others.
Seeing that he was waiting for an answer Venus turned back to
Tuxedo Mask and said vaguely, "This is where we hold our meetings,
that's all. We'll explain everything to you soon Tuxedo Mask, but
for now we have to take care of Mercury." Seeing the logic in her
statement Tuxedo Mask bit back any questions he had and saved them
for later. He understood that there wasn't time for explanations
right at this moment, but that didn't stop his curiosity from
driving him up the walls.
Ignoring Tuxedo Mask and the two guardian cats for a moment
Sailor Venus, Mars, and Jupiter talked in low tones to each other,
discussing the Mercury problem.
Rei was furious, tired, and sad..... How could someone she
trusted so much beray her? Serena was her best friend, and Rei
knew that now they would have to come up with some sort of plan to
save their beloved leader from the enemies grasp. Rei knew that
friends didn't betray friend if they don't have a good reason for
it.
Ignoring Tuxedo Mask for a bit the scouts started to discuss
Mercury's condition seriously.
"What do you think?" Venus asked, obviously torn between her
anger towards Serena and her worry about Mercury.
"Well," Mars began. "She was doing o.k before the monster was
destroyed, but when Serena showed up and threw us all across the
street she hit her head pretty hard on that tree. I think she might
have some brain damage, or at the least, a concussion, but there's
no way to be sure and we can't take her to a hospital, not in her
scout form at least, so I don't think we'll be able to treat her.
We'll just have to leave her be and hope she gets better."
Jupiter and Venus nodded. Jupiter's head had risen and fallen
throughout all of Mars's words. She had been listening intently,
Mercury was after all, her friend, but when Serena's name was
mentioned her head went down, both to hide her anger, and her tears.
She had not cried since she was a little girl, when her parents had
died, but now she felt the tears form. Because Serena had been her
best friend, her *first* friend, they were like sisters. Actually,
now it should be they *had been* like sisters. Just like Raye, Lita
knew, friends didn't betray friends, and most especially not without
a damn good reason.
Rising from their kneeling positions on the floor, by Mercury's
side, all three functional scouts turned around and were then faced
with the problem of telling Tuxedo Mask, Luna and Artemis what they
wanted, what they *needed* to know. They would not reveal their
identities to Tuxedo Mask, but they would tell him everything that
he needed to know, to know just how dangerous Sailor Moon could be
when angered, and when she was at full power. She may be a clutz and
a crybaby, but when her emotions were strong and true her powers
were as well. They should know, they had seen what happened,
although only once, when you really got Sailor Moon angry.
"Alright," Venus said at last, sitting on the cold wood floor
again, this time facing the two guardian cats. "This is what
happened."
And so she relayed the the two what had taken place at the ice-
creme parlor and when she reached the end of her story all the two
cats could do was gape.
"Do.... do you mean... that Ser- Sailor Moon, has betrayed us...
to the Nega-verse?" Luna asked at last. That was all she could get
out though. She was too shocked to say more, and Artemis was too
shocked to say anything.
Venus took a moment responding, because although she didn't
really want to believe it, she had to face facts.
"Yes.
And then the two cats exploded with questions... again.
"When did she betray us?!"
"*Why* would she betray us?!"
"How was she able to float in midair? How could she learn to do
that?!"
"How powerful was she?!"
"Are you sure it was Sailor Moon?!"
"Could it have been an imposter?"
"Why would Sailor Moon hurt any of you?"
The questions were coming far too fast and for Venus and the
others it was almost impossible to assertain which cat each question
was coming from. They seemed to be coming from both and all the
words were mixing and jumbling together so much that all three
scouts weren't able to get a word in edgewise.
By the time the two cats were done Sailor Venus had taken to
ignoring them and turning her attention to answering Tuxedo Mask.
Mars and Jupiter had tried to calm Luna and Artemis and when they
found that they couldn't they just sighed and waited for them to
finish.
"Well," Venus said at last, facing the masked man behind them.
"What did *you* want to know?" He could tell by her voice that she
wasn't in the mood for a list of questions so he narrowed it down to
two of the most important ones. "Why are we here, at the temple, and
how is it that those two cats can talk?"
Venus considered his question for many minutes and debated on what
to tell him, not exactly knowing the answer to the second question
herself.
"To answer your first question, we are here because this is where
all of our scout meetings are held... The temple preistess knows
this. We always tell her what's going on and because she has strong
powers herself she can often help us.... But as for your second
question, I'm afraid you'll have to ask them yourself." She gestured
to the still talking white and black cat and with a short nod Tuxedo
Mask stepped in front of them, blocking their view of the scouts and
filling it with himself. The two cats reacted the same way they had
with Venus, by snapping their mouths shut, stepping backwards, and
going silent. The scouts all sighed in relief.
"Sailor Venus here tells me that to know how it is that you two
cats can talk I have to ask you myself, so... I'm asking." Jupiter
smiled slightly at the tone he used with the two guardian cats. One
that was not in any way demanding, but one that said he was not
going to take more silence as an answer. And the scouts were also
curious how it was that Luna and Artemis could talk, but they had
never asked before. And now that the quesion had been brought up
they wanted to know the answer.
"Yah, come on Luna." Mars said enjoying the looks on the two cats
faces. "We want to know ho-"
"Luna!?" Tuxedo Mask cried, shock and astonishment washing over
his face like ripples upon water.
The five occupants of the room, cats and girls alike all turned
to him in surprise.
"Yes." Luna said at last. "My name is Luna. Is there something
wrong with that?" Tuxedo Mask could only stare at her, his mask
hiding his eyes, and therefore the look of extreme surprise in them.
"Well... Yes - I mean, no, of course not. It's just, well.... Is
your owner named Serena?" He asked bluntly. That was what had
shocked him so much, the fact that he only knew of one cat in all of
Tokyo that was named Luna, although there could be more, and the
person he did know who had a cat named Luna was Serena, and she was
always making all those strange remarks about Luna bugging her about
her homework, or being late, or getting bad grades, and then there
was of course all those times he had thought he'd caught her talking
to herself.... But what if she hadn't been talking to herself, but
to her cat?
The shocked looks on all the scouts faces confirmed his
suspicions.
"You... you know Serena?" Mars asked, her eyes ready to burst
from her head as he nodded in the affirmative.
"How?" Luna asked.
Tuxedo Mask hesitated, unsure of how to explain his friendship
with Serena, if they even had one, without revealing to the scouts
who he really was.
"We've met before." Was all he said, when he finally spoke again
after the long silence that had ensued when the topic of Serena had
come up. Although, the scouts had been silent for altogether
different reasons than Tuxedo Mask. He quickly moved back to the
subject at hand. "So, how is it that you can talk?" He asked again,
raising his eyebrows at the two cats in front of him. They both
looked to each other for a moment, shrugged, and pronounced
simultaneously, "We just do."
Tuxedo Mask didn't like that answer, but he went along with it.
Who'd ever heard of interrogating cats anyway?
"So," Venus began again, taking charge of matters. "What do we do
about Sailor Moon?"
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What they all eventually did decide to do about Sailor Moon was
not to hurt her, but to trap her. She would not be harmed, on the
contrary, the wanted her alive and well, but they were going to
capture her and bring her back to their side.
They all thought that Sailor Moon had been brainwashed somehow
and forced to join the Nega-verse, and they wanted her back on
their side, so they were going to try and capture her, and then
contain her until they could find out what to do with her. There
was of course the possibility that Sailor Moon had chosen to betray
them but they prefered not to think about that. They didn't want to.
Mercury had not been present in any of the discussions because
she was still totally out of it and the scouts were beginning to
really worry about her. But there was nothing they could do so they
continued to discus how to go about setting up their plan and tried
to take their minds off their injured comrade.
Perhaps if they had known that it was in fact been Sailor Moon's
own decision to join the Nega-verse, and if they had known that she
had gotten much more powerful since they had last seen her before
she was a general, then they would have re-evaluated their plan a
little. Probably a lot.
But they didn't, and that's why their plan didn't exactly work
out the way they wanted it to.
But now was the time to dicuss the matters at hand, and one of
those matters happened to deal with Sailor Moon's family. This was
where Venus made her first real mistake of the night.
"Well," She began, moving on to other matters now that they had
settled on capturing and containing Sailor Moon as their plan.
"What are we going to do about Serena's parents?" She had made a
mistake in using Sailor Moon's real name, but it had been a long
night, and they were all tired, plus, Tuxedo Mask was the only one
who did not know who Sailor Moon really was and he seemed to have
melted into the shadows of the temple, rarely talking, and keeping
to himself a lot, and Venus had all but forgotten he was there.
Actually, she *had* forgotten he was there. But from his spot in
the corner, near the sacred fire, Tuxedo Mask looked up curiously
as Serena's name was mentioned again. What did Serena have to do
with anything?
All the other scouts shrugged, and Venus went on, saying more
than she should have, and only out of habit. No one besides the
scouts and the cats had ever come to a scout meeting before and
Venus knew that.
"Well, we have to think of something. We can't very well tell
them that their daughter is the leader of the sailor scouts, a
defender of love and justice, and that now she's gone off and
betrayed us all to the Nega-verse. I think we'd give Serena's father
a heart attack!" The scouts all chuckled to themselves at the small
joke, they knew how protective Serena's father was of her and how he
would react to knowing she had been out battling monsters everyday
for the past year or so... but their laughter was cut off abruptly
as a choked gasp came from the corner of the room, from where Tuxedo
Mask was standing, so pale he was the color of his tuxedo shirt, and
his eyes so wide they looked as though they would burst from his
head any minute.
For a full minute there was absolute silence, and the tense
atmosphere was only broken by Venus's quiet, "Oops."
When her small voice broke through the air Tuxedo Mask finally
seemed to regain his voice. "You... you mean to tell me... that...
*Serena* is... Sailor Moon?!" He didn't know whether he shouted it
or whispered it, but it seemed like both to him, and he felt as
though he'd been struck by lightning as every person or animal in
the room slowly nodded their heads yes.
He should have realized it sooner. They two of them were so
alike. The hair, the eyes, the personality, the antics, the
voice... the tears.
"And," Luna spoke up quietly from her spot beside Artemis, close
to the fire. "There is one more thing that I think you all should
know. Something about Serena, Sailor Moon, that I failed to tell
you all before." All eyes turned to her, even Artemis's, and Luna
continued in a slightly shaky voice. "Sailor Moon in her most
powerful form, when she reaches the very height of her power, will
literally be able to kill us all within an instant. She could
destory us all on a whim, without even trying to." Everyone and
everything in the room went dead silent, and for a moment Luna
seemed to be on the verge of collapse as she continued to whisper
quietly, "And if she ever does reach her most powerful form there
will be no stopping her. *We* could never stop her, and neither
could anyone else... and with all her power, and all her knowledge
of how to use it, it is conceivable that Serena, even without her
sailor powers, could easily destroy this whole planet... with a
single thought."
The scouts just couldn't take it anymore and they all collapsed
in a dead faint while Artemis stared at Luna in shock and Tuxedo
Mask fell to his knees with this new revelation.
If Serena ever did get that kind of power, the scouts knew that
there was no way in Hell that they could stop her, unless she
stopped herself, and they couldn't trust her to do that right
now....
There would be no stopping her.... she would be unbeatable...
and this planet and everyone on it..... would die.
______________________
Crystal silently screamed at
herself, totally unaware of the scouts conversation about her at the
moment. She paused for a moment, amending herself, before going
on ranting to herself about her foolish, idotic, *humiliating*
behavior. But that
particular though was rather weak and Crystal felt as though she
were trying to convince herself of that thought rather than stating
it.
She paused in the middle of her silent ranting as she heard
voices coming from behind the throne room doors which she had been
passing. She recognized one as belonging to Zoisite, and the second
sounded like Queen Beryl. Crystal only hesitated a moment before
putting he ear to the door and straining her ears to hear what was
being said. She felt slight guilt at eavesdropping, but so slight
she didn't even realize it was there.
"....want you to watch her carefully." Beryl finished and Crystal
cursed silently for not hearing the first part of her words,
although, she had a strange feeling the two of them were talking
about her. Zoisite responded with a, "Yes my queen." and then headed
towards the door which Crystal was standing in front of. She moved
back in a hurry and quickly headed down the hallway, towards her
quarters. She reached her rooms doors just as Zoisite stepped out
and she entered them before Zoisite even noticed her presence.
Sighing quietly to herself Crystal yawned and walked over to her
bed. The pillows were black, the color of ebony, and a deep purple,
very close to black, curtain shielded the bed from anyone watching.
The thick silk comforter that lay atop the bed was black, like the
pillows, and the inner side of it was purple to match the curtain.
The whole room, as one, was very nicely furnished, somewhat like
Kunzite's room, only darker in colors. Most everything in her room
was black, purple, and even had a touch of navy blue here and there,
while Kunzite's room had reds, and blacks, and a few personal
belongings that were green in color. Probably Zoisite's.
Moving aside the curtain of material, and collapsing on the soft
blankets and mattresses, not even bothering to change or remove her
shoes, Crystal feel asleep immediatly, her energy drained, more
from the emotional battle she'd been fighting within herself than
anything. And because of this she failed to see the pair of scarlet
red eyes watching her from across the room, seeing easily without
the curtain to block it's vision, and knowing that the figure it
watched, the figure it saw, was indeed very powerful, very skilled,
very important, and a great asset.
But despite her sleeping state Crystal still felt their power,
and their evil, but she could not, and did not know who it was that
watched her.
And the red eyes, peering at her in the dark, laughed.
TO BE CONTINUED.....